Utah Moves Closer To Abstinence-Only Education: VIDEO

Abstinence-only "sex education" is nearer to becoming a mandate in Utah after the State House quietly passed HB363 by a terrifying 45-28 margin last week. The bills' defenders have been saying weird things. From The Salt Lake Tribune:

"We’ve been culturally watered down to think we have to teach about sex, about having sex and how to get away with it, which is intellectually dishonest," said bill sponsor Rep. Bill Wright, R-Holden [pictured at right]. "Why don’t we just be honest with them upfront that sex outside marriage is devastating?"

Even opponents of HB363 are frightened of sex. The Tribunequotes a Democrat who voted against the bill:

"You cannot speak of abstinence without talking to students about methods of birth control that are not certain, about protecting oneself from [sexually transmitted diseases] and all the things that can happen in a negative sense to a young person who engages in sex ," said Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay. "It’s really immoral not to teach kids about what the consequences are."

With friends like that! Anyway -- the bill was debated on the House floor on Tuesday, with both its sexophobic supporters and slightly-less sexophobic opponents eventually hashing out something that somebody might call a compromise. As the bill stands now, schools uncomfortable with abstinence-only can elect to teach no sex ed at all, and nobody will be allowed to teach on the use of contraception.

Note that this is very similar to the law as it already exists. Right now, Utah's educators may teach either abstinence-only or abstinence-only with some instruction on the use of contraceptives, so long as said instruction comes with the admonition that premarital sex is always wrong and dangerous. Alas, that's not strict enough:

"Maybe you’ve noticed that the world has figured out how to populate itself over thousands of years without sex education," said Rep. LaVar Christensen, R-Draper. He said it’s "not good enough" to just avoid advocacy of contraception while teaching students about it.

Right. Because nothing says "propogate" like "contracept."

HB363 is so evil and silly that it's unworthy of editorial dismemberment. What it needs is a song. Roy Zimmerman supplies one AFTER THE JUMP ...

Latest Posts

IN TRUMP’S AMERICA. Second Tampa Bay, Florida church vandalized with swastikas, MAGA graffiti: “The Iglesia el Sembrador Wesleyano, a church in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood of Clearwater, Florida, was targeted by vandals this wee… Read

Gay Republican activist and former presidential hopeful Fred Karger is taking on the Mormon Church once again, this time challenging the church’s tax-exempt status in a new ad campaign. The goal of Karger’s campaign is to make it clear to… Read

A gay couple got engaged during Thursday night’s Chicago Bulls game against San Antonio and video of the proposal is the perfect reprieve from the colossal amount of awful going on in the world right now. Jake Conrad wanted to propose to his bo… Read

Tim Murphy of Towleroad’s new anti-Trump platform DailyResist talks with queer immigration advocate Thanu Yakupitiyage about threats faced in the coming administration by immigrants, how The New York Immigration Coalition and other groups are f… Read

The attorney general of the Cherokee Nation issued an opinion on Friday indicating that the tribe of approximately 300,000, living mostly within the state of Oklahoma, will recognize same-sex marriages. Tulsa World reports: While agreeing that the tr… Read

Comedian and YouTuber Jordan Doww has just launched a new sketch comedy show, “It’s Sketchy”, and the first episode tackles an experience you might be familiar with: that moment you learn that your crush is straight. Says Doww of h… Read

A public school near where VP-elect Mike Pence is staying during the transition has removed a gay pride flag it was flying in solidarity with the LGBT community because it is too ‘political.’ Lafayette Elementary School was given the rain… Read

German DJ-producer DJ Hell’s first new single in three years is out and the video is a sizzling Tom of Finland fever dream that brings the iconic artist Touko Laaksonen’s hypersexualized drawings to life. It’s a full-on collaboratio… Read

President Obama has ordered the intelligence community to conduct a “full review” of this year’s presidential election to assess whether it was undermined by cyber attacks carried out by foreign agents. The report will be given to O… Read